At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are alarmed by their desire to devour others.

I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.

I guess writing is a kind of therapy in the sense that there are things you need to say and you say them, and better out than in.

I'm always writing. I'm an obsessive. It's not because I'm a disciplined person. It's because I'm crazy about it.

I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.

These days everyone was insisting on their identity, coming out as a man, woman, gay, black, Jew - brandishing whichever features they could claim, as if without a tag they wouldn’t be human.

But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want." "Hey, what about the ugly ones?" "The ugly ones." She poked her tongue out. "It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.